Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What does the name Sylution mean?

A: SylutionTM is trademarked name made from the
joining the words System and Evolution. These capture the essence of
what we do at Sylution. Most vendors push a policy of rip and
replace - migrate from old systems to a new platform or system. In
the world of automation and manufacturing intelligence this is great
for vendor of platforms and integrated suites of products. They sell
a new "platform" capable of doing a lot of stuff without being the
best at anything. The client has an inordinate cost of installation,
high software maintenance costs, and a system full of tools that are
always that are always two to five years behind what best-of-breed
is doing today. Sylution advocates evolving systems - replacing
components based on risk and ROI - with the best systems that
integrate to your existing systems.

Q: What does the tagline *Acquire *Analyze *Present mean?

A: This is what we do. We help our clients get the right
manufacturing data from automation and controls, business systems,
maintenance, manual inputs and more. There is almost no existing
system that we cannot connect to get data. We provide tools and
services to help our clients analyze the data to make it into
actionable intelligence and key performance indicators for operators
right to the board room. Finally, we help our clients present the
intelligence in the right manner and via the right service on
operator stations, web pages, electronic signage, email alerts,
trends, charts, graphs, and reports.

Q: Why do I need a performance
management system like an MES? Can't I just put all my
data production data in a process historian and then write reports
that show downtime and performance KPIs?
A: The short and somewhat deceiving answer is "yes, of course". The
problem with that answer is a process historian and performance
management system are two separate types of systems. Chose what you
need based on the reports and dashboards that are needed. The process historian saves
time series data, ie. Value:Time. Time has to the only link between
all data. Writing a report showing performance KPIs per shift, SKU,
job, order number, batch, supplier, etc. is difficult at best and
every report, every dashboard is difficult to build and easy to
break. An MES stores the
key performance information, not data, to make performance reporting easy. The process historian is an excellent tool
for seeing Trends. Call us at Sylution and we can show you the
differences and uses for each of these valuable tools.